Vijay Verma, 49, and Tarsem Lal, 78, both of whom are owner of a jewellery store in New Jersey, have been sentenced to 14 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement, respectively, the Acting US Attorney William E Fitzpatrick said.

They then borrowed or spend as much as they could, based on the phony credit history, but did not repay the debts - causing more than $200 million in confirmed losses to businesses and financial institutions, federal prosecutors alleged.

These debts were incurred at Verma's jewellery store, among many other locations, where Verma would allow fraudulently obtain credit cards to be swiped in phony transactions, court papers said.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Verma and Lal each admitted allowing others who came to their Jersey City, New Jersey, store to swipe cards they knew did not legitimately belong to them.

Verma and Lal would then split the proceeds of the phony transactions with these other conspirators.

In addition to the prison terms, Judge Thompson sentenced Verma to three years of supervised release and Lal to three years of probation.

Each of them have been fined $5,000 and ordered to pay forfeiture of $451,259.